Kagan Research Group Increases Flexibility of Electronic Circuits with Nanocrystals

The Kagan Research Group, headed by Pennergy Co-Director Cherie Kagan, has recently made some enormous strides in increasing the pliancy of electronic circuits. Typically, these circuits are joined with unyielding pieces of silicon, whose rigidity currently limits their application in modern technology. This research, led by David Kim, a doctoral student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science; Yuming Lai, a doctoral student in the Engineering School’s Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering; and professor Kagan (with the help of Benjamin Diroll, a doctoral student in chemistry, and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Christopher Murray of Materials Science and of Chemistry) has shown that nanoscale particles, or nanocrystals, of the semiconductor cadmium selenide can be coated on flexible plastics and used instead of silicon circuits to enormous benefit.

This method is faster, easier to produce, and more flexible than its silicon predecessor, and has the potential to prompt exciting innovations in modern devices and censors.